Victory is mine!

So I’m writing my current story, “To be Held,” finally! It’s been two to three weeks since I’ve been able to write, so I’m rather happy.

That being said, I posted last week about how complicated it is when your characters have secrets and you don’t want everything spilled at the same time That is why this story is so difficult for me actually, because it is a strongly secret and suspicion based story. But… well I did something and I think it worked out.

What I did was I wrote out all of my characters’ secrets, whose secret it was, and why it was important to the story. Then, with all the secrets written in front of me, I ordered the secrets based off of how I wanted they to be revealed.  With that, I could easily look at my newly-created cheat sheet and figure out what the next scene had to be about.

So, scene one I needed to create enough tension that would cause Carmen (the main character) to become suspicious of Edmond. That’s all I’ll say. I don’t want to give anything away. What’s even better is that I think I did it. Edmond gives her enough hints that he knows more than he’s saying.

Then, today, I surprised myself by being able to write scene two. This one had some surprises for myself, mostly that all of my characters wanted to talk at the exact instant and tell all of their secrets. And… I let them actually. Which I know, in a story based on suspicion and distrust, it doesn’t make sense, but it did actually. And I didn’t reveal everything. Just… most everything.

So I am very satisfied with myself to be quite honest. I’ve written ten pages in the past two days and I like how it is coming out thus far. However, I listened to the song it was based on today again and I discovered it is very loosely based on the song. Oh well. I still like the story a lot. (Have I ever written a summery? I’m not sure. I’ll have to check.)

Oh, and about editing Shad, I honestly don’t know what to do exactly. I have one more chapter to read through however, and then I’m done with that, but about writing a synopsis… that is just totally overwhelming. I’ll see. Next week I’ll (hopefully) get off.

hiding the whole picture

Writers have one of the most challenging jobs. Why? Because we see the whole picture and we have to keep parts of the picture hidden until we want the reader to know.

Case in point: I’m working on my new story today. (To be Held.) In this story, we have four doctors trapped in a bunker while they are being attacked. One of the doctors are unconscious for most of it, which brings it down to three. From that, I need every single one of these people thinking that the other one is to blame for this attack.

This is really easy. I know who is in the wrong, who knew about the attack, and who knows nothing. The problem is that the reader doesn’t know. The reader doesn’t know what has been going on, each of the person’s history, or why each one would distrust the other one.

Which means that I, as the writer, need to demonstrate this distrust in such a believable fashion, all the while setting it up so when the reader discovers the truth, they can look back and say that they should have seen in coming.

So tell me again why I like writing when it is this complicated?

It’s actually because it is this complicated that I like writing. And it’s when I get the breakthroughs, like one of them has a gun in his/her possession, and why one of them might distrust this rather nice doctor, that I write for.

So now, back to building up the suspicion.

the unknown problem of writing in college

Basically, the problem with being in college is it takes a lot of time. I’m currently taking 17 hours, but that manages to add up to thirteen hours of sitting in class plus another nine hours of nursing clinical and two hours of lab for a total of twenty four hours of class room time, Then, I work for about an hour each week, but I’m trying for more just because I don’t want to have to survive on 28 dollars a month and I just finished training for my job, which took up another two hours of my day. And… I keep thinking I’m doing something that I’m missing but I don’t remember what, besides eight hours of sleep a night.

What it comes down to is that I am busy. Busybusybusy. Why does this matter with writing? Because when I’m this busy, I think I just can’t find the plots.

Reason why? See, you know about school’s writing contest that I’ve mentioned before. When I first saw it, I thought about what I would write for that whole first semester. Nothing came besides a few silly ideas. School stopped, I’m free and I get the idea to write short stories so I can get everything out. I come up with my Robin Hood rewrite, my when-to-fight story, my Dragon Slayers story, Kontyo and finish with starting mindskill, plus I think a few others. It was awesome after a month of no plots.

i also started a diet at about this time so I thought that it was the diet letting my mind think some more. Now… now I’m not sure. Because I’m two months into the semester and I’m having a hard time plotting. It’s like all my mental energy is focused on school that I can’t come up with anything to write.

This is, obviously, very bad, because I use writing to relax. If I have no plots, how can I relax while doing something productive (not playing stupid facebook games)?

This whole concept that school zaps my plotting skills is foreign to me. Last year, while at another school, I managed to write a whole novel (Shad) in a matter of months. It was a blast. But now… I’m lucky if I can come up with something to even write about.

Last semester at Thanksgiving break, I was sick the whole time, so I’m hoping now that things will clear up mentally for me over spring break so I can restock my plots.  I guess it’s just a side effect of going to college that we never think of.

My other thought is that I’d rather write more of a suspense type book, that’s quick and fast. Writing fights are hard to begin with that the last thing someone wants to read about is some kind of fight I would think every single scene (more or less). So I’m thinking that maybe what I should do is read a suspense book to get a better idea about how to do action. I am about to start a chaotic two weeks (from test 2 in nursing until test 3), so I obviously can’t start that until after those two weeks at least. Then we’ll see how much reading we have at that time to determine if I can or not.  I also want to read this book I started earlier this semester but never finished over spring break. Oi, looks like I’ll be busy.

(Oh, and on that love story idea, I LOVE that idea the more I think about it. The stupid plot won’t get out of my head. I am so frustrated, but convince now that he divorces the other girl at her request and marries someone else.)